Winner of six Grand Slam tournaments, Boris Becker was found guilty last Friday of concealing assets and loans worth three million euros and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The legendary 54-year-old German player hid his assets and his loans so as not to pay his debts which reached 60 million euros. Boris Becker will have to spend 18 months in prison before being eligible for parole.
The latter began serving his sentence in HMP Wandsworth prison, known as Wanno which, curiously, is located only 3.2 kilometers from the All England Club where the Wimbledon tournament is played, which he won three times (1985, 86, 89). This 170-year-old prison has a very bad reputation with problems of violence, drug addiction and prisoners locked up for 22 hours a day, which has created dementia in some. Boris Becker, who was interned in a wing where there are six showers for 86 cells (which can accommodate up to six prisoners), must spend a minimum of 15 days in Wandsworth prison before being transferred to a category C prison, of lower security.
Filmmaker Chris Atkins, a former inmate of Wandsworth, described the prison in a book as follows: “Crying, hitting, yelling, growling, barking, threatening, ranting, laughing, moaning, arguing, fighting, yelling, crying. It’s like someone downloaded all the sound effects and blew them all up at once. The reception wing seems to have been last redone in 1895 when Oscar Wilde was imprisoned here for homosexuality. The inmates mostly appear to be seriously mentally ill, drugged or both. Wandsworth is a very violent prison, but if you keep your head down and don’t get involved in the drugs, the debts and all the local politics, it’s not really that dangerous.”
Unsanitary problems with rats as neighbors of prisoners have also been noted in this prison where between 2020 and 2021, prison officers had to use force 1,295 times.